Despite regaining some ground in December, a disastrous fourth quarter left the average hedge fund down by more than one-fifth on the year, according to Morningstar.

The Morningstar 1000 Hedge Fund Index lost 7.9% and 9.8%, respectively, in September and October, before a 2.1% rise in December cut the index’s quarterly loss to 10.3%. For the full-year, the index was down 22.2%.

“In 2008, hedge fund managers generally failed to deliver,” said Nadia Papagiannis, a hedge fund analyst at the Chicago-based research provider. “The average hedge fund may have lost less than the stock market, thanks in part to large cash allocations, but this level of performance was not why investors agreed to pay 2% management fees and 20% performance fees.”

And investors reacted: According to Morningstar, $44 billion left the industry last year in the form of redemptions, mostly in October and November. Not all hedge funds survived the onslaught of withdrawals and poor performance: The number of hedge funds dropping out of Morningstar’s database more than doubled last year, with 1,158 single-manager funds and 490 funds of hedge funds removed from the index, although not all removals are the result of hedge fund liquidations.

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The testimony of former FBI Director James Comey came and went with more hype than harm to Donald Trump’s administration. The more important issue is whether Congress spent too much political capital to get comprehensive tax reform done by the end of 2017. The likelihood of significant policy changes is fleeting for the year. Some economists are even losing hope that tax reform will be completed by the midterm elections of 2018.